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May 2020

Remember when Gov. Kemp was excoriated for re-opening Georgia? Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/remember_when_gov_kemp_was_excoriated_for_reopening_georgia_are_you_wondering_how_that_has_worked_out.html

It was just over 2 weeks ago that Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp was a monster with blood about to be on his hands for greatly loosening the restrictions on residents of the Peach State? Even President Trump joined in, criticizing this move as risky.

Since then, we haven’t seen much about the disaster that was supposed to automatically result from ignoring the gospel of Dr.Fauci.

Which tells you what has happened in this era of corrupt and dishonest propaganda media.

Amanda Prestigiacomo of the Daily Wire fills in the details that any reasonable person would infer from the media blackout:

 Republican Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia celebrated the state’s lowest number of hospitalized novel coronavirus patients and the fewest number of COVID-19 patients on ventilators on Saturday, 15 days since the Republican loosened lockdown restrictions in the face of persistent attacks from the mainstream media and the public disapproval of President Donald Trump.

Respiratory symptoms of COVID-19 “typically appear an average of 5-6 days after exposure, but may appear in as few as 2 days or as long as 14 days after exposure,” per the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UC San Diego Health notes.

“Today marks the lowest number of COVID-19 positive patients currently hospitalized statewide (1,203) since hospitals began reporting this data on April 8th,” Kemp posted to Twitter on Saturday. “Today also marks the lowest total of ventilators in use (897 with 1,945 available). We will win this fight together!”

Blitzkrieg Lessons for 2020 By Taylor Dinerman

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/coronavirus-pandemic-blitzkrieg-lessons-for-2020/

The problem is greater than just a few moments of panic.

  E ighty years ago, on May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill took over as Britain’s prime minister and Hitler launched his attack on Holland, Belgium, and France. The Blitzkrieg, as it became known, was a spectacular military success: In less than six weeks Nazi Germany defeated the Allied armies and occupied the Low Countries and a big part of France while at the same time kicking the British off the Continent.

How the Germans did it has been the subject of numerous books. But one thing that emerges is that, both at the time and later, the Allies, and the then-neutral Americans, failed to understand what really happened. A set of myths developed, many of which were believed and propagated by various military experts and intelligence services.

Most historians put the critical turning point on the morning of May 15, when in a moment of panic the French prime minister Paul Reynaud told Churchill, “We have been defeated.” The panic was based on mostly distorted and inaccurate information from the French army’s high command and from the intelligence services. The offensive was expected, but the location was not, with the attack coming about a hundred miles south of where the allies thought the main thrust would take place. The army’s command structure was unable to adapt quickly enough to the new situation, and this in turn created panic at the highest levels of government.

Today, with the Wuhan coronavirus presenting a completely unexpected challenge to governments all over the world, panic, or something like it, seems to be gripping leaders at all levels. In Michigan and Maine the governors have obviously tried to hide their panic behind masks of authoritarian bluster. In New York, Andrew Cuomo had a very public ventilator-shortage breakdown, though he recovered. The media naturally stuck the tape of his panic down the memory hole.

The problem is greater than just a few moments of panic. It involves the sad fact that some people who’ve been credentialed as experts are incompetent time-servers, men and women who fit the requirements of leading big organizations but lack the imagination and daring to deal with the unexpected. In war it is all too often the case that peacetime generals are just not up to the job. In the current time of plague, few of the public-health experts who are attached to what one might call “top-down” solutions have covered themselves in glory. Political leaders should have learned to be skeptical.

Are Endless Lockdowns the Result of Malice or Stupidity? By David Solway

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2020/05/10/are-endless-lockdowns-the-result-of-malice-or-stupidity-n389548

In a harrowing article for PJ Media, Dennis Prager argues that the COVID-19 global lockdown is “possibly, the worst mistake the world has ever made,” leading to a mortality rate eclipsing anything the virus could have delivered. Widespread famine in Third World Countries and extreme poverty across the globe are now imminent, “all because of the lockdowns, not the virus.” A study released on May 4 by the nonprofit research institute Just Facts confirms Prager’s argument, concluding that “the total loss of life from all societal responses to this disease is likely to be more than 90 times greater than prevented by the lockdowns.”

Despair, anxiety, bankruptcies, suicide, reduced productivity, diminishment of life expectancy as well as “quality of life,” and postponement of elective surgeries (just one example of undoubted millions: my wife’s mother is going blind but corrective treatment has been put off indefinitely) are some of the consequences of the great “flattening.” 

When one factors in the economic costs and attendant suffering, the effect is almost too staggering to contemplate. How could our leaders have committed such a blunder? Prager is at pains to clarify that the economic catastrophe we are undergoing globally should be attributed not to evil intentions but primarily to rank incompetence. He is obviously invoking “Hanlon’s razor” that advises us: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” 

Prager writes: “The lockdown is a mistake; the Holocaust, slavery, communism, fascism, etc., were evils. Massive mistakes are made by arrogant fools; massive evils are committed by evil people.” I suspect the razor applies to many government leaders who simply did everything wrong and then doubled down on their error rather than admit mortal fallibility. They were stupid—and too proud to acknowledge their mistake. They ensured that the remedy would be worse than the disease, but they cannot be blamed for malice aforethought.

Ten reasons to end the lockdown now Lockdown is impairing our ability to live with the effects of this virus, while not changing the long game Dr John Lee

https://spectator.us/ten-reasons-end-lockdown-now/

Writing in this magazine a month ago, I applauded the British government’s stated aim of trying to follow the science in dealing with COVID. Such promises are easier made than kept. Following science means understanding science. It means engaging with rival interpretations of the limited data in order to tease out what is most important in what we don’t know. Instead, the government in the UK (and many other places) seems uninterested in alternative viewpoints. The chosen narrative — that lockdown has saved countless lives — has been doggedly followed by all spokespeople. No doubt is allowed. We have been seeing the groupthink response to a perceived external threat that Jonathan Haidt describes so lucidly in his excellent book on human moral thinking, The Righteous Mind.

It has now become a matter of faith that lockdown is vital. Not only is it believed to be causally responsible for ‘flattening the curve’, but it is feared that releasing it too soon may cause a second spike in cases and ‘economic disaster’ (presumably due to further huge numbers of deaths). On what evidence is this made?

Even if you could understand why lockdown was imposed, it very rapidly became apparent that it had not been thought through. Not in terms of the wider effects on society (which have yet to be counted) and not even in terms of the ways that the virus itself might behave. But at the start, there was hardly any evidence. Everyone was guessing. Now we have a world of evidence, from around the globe, and the case for starting to reverse lockdown is compelling. Here are 10 reasons why I believe that it is wrong to continue with lockdown and why we should start to reverse it immediately and rapidly.

1. You cannot understand the significance of this virus simply by looking at the raw death figures

No end to lockdown yet but ‘careful’ easing begins, British PM Johnson says Kylie MacLellan

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain/britains-johnson-to-set-out-five-tier-coronavirus-warning-system-idUSKBN22M07D

LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday the coronavirus lockdown will not end yet, urging people to “stay alert” to the risks as he outlined plans to begin slowly easing measures that have closed down much of the economy for nearly seven weeks.

While his government was giving directions for England, it wants the United Kingdom’s other constituent nations – Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – to take the same approach. But there were immediate divisions, with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon saying she was sticking with the existing “stay at home” message.

Johnson announced a limited easing of restrictions, including allowing people to exercise outside more often and encouraging those who cannot work from home to return to their jobs.

“This is not the time simply to end the lockdown this week,” he said in a televised address. “Instead we are taking the first careful steps to modify our measures.”

Johnson’s government has faced criticism from opposition parties and others over its handling of the pandemic and the prime minister is wary of taking the brakes off too soon. Britain’s coronavirus death toll – 31,855 – is the second highest in the world, behind only the United States. The bulk of the cases and deaths have been in England.

The government’s decision to replace its “stay at home” slogan, drummed into the public for weeks, was criticised by opposition parties who called the new “stay alert” message too ambiguous.

Flynn Attorney Sidney Powell: This Whole Thing Was Orchestrated Within The FBI, Clapper, Brennan, And President Obama Posted By Tim Hains

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/0/10/flynn_attorney_sidney_powell_this_

Michael Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell joined FNC’s “Sunday Morning Futures” to discuss the latest on charges against Flynn being dropped by federal prosecutors and suggests that when all is said and done, the role of the Obama administration in “orchestrating” the case against him will be clear:

SIDNEY POWELL, ATTORNEY FOR MICHAEL FLYNN: His reaction at first was one of disbelief and relief at the same time.

It’s going to take a while to process it. He’s obviously very grateful to the attorney general and Mr. Jensen for having the integrity to dig for the truth and to get it out for the American people to see. And he is looking forward to spending time with his family.

I’m sure he will have a statement to make sometime in the near future.

BARTIROMO: Sidney, this is obviously a big step toward justice. And our viewers heard this here first. We knew this was coming.

But Judge Sullivan still has to sign off on this, Sidney. She’s — he’s got to sign off on the motion. When are you expecting that to happen?

POWELL: I would expect it to happen tomorrow or sometime early this week.

It’s a matter of the prosecutors’ actual discretion. Judge Sullivan, according to a couple of Supreme Court decisions, I’m sure he will follow the law there and sign off on it.

BARTIROMO: Now, I know that there were a few things that we learned in these transcripts that were released as well.

And in terms of the way they violated General Flynn’s rights, they did not mention the 1001. Tell me about Section 1001 and why that’s important, Sidney.

POWELL: Well it’s the statute that makes it a federal felony to lie to agents.

France’s No-Go Zones: The Riots Return by Guy Millière

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15977/france-no-go-zones-riots

A few months ago, a police officer, Noam Anouar, who infiltrated Islamist circles… stated that no-go zones in France are now foreign enclaves on French territory. “The gangs operating there,” he wrote, “have formed a parallel economy based on drug trafficking. They consider themselves at war with France and with Western civilization. They act in cooperation with Islamist organizations, and define acts of predation and rampage as raids against infidels”. He noted that reclaiming these areas today would be complicated, costly, and involve calling in the army.

For years, successive French governments have chosen a policy of “willful blindness”: they simply behave as if they do not see what is going on. They do not even try to find solutions.

Saturday, April 18, 11 pm. Villeneuve-la-Garenne, a small town in the northern suburbs of Paris. A young man rides a motorcycle at high speed and hits the door of a police car. He breaks his leg. He is sent to the hospital. He does not have a driver’s license but does have a long criminal history. He was sentenced several times by the courts for drug trafficking, robbery with violence and sexual assault.

As soon as news of the accident is released, hostile messages about the police circulate on social media; and in a dozen cities in France, riots break out. The riots are continue for five days in a row. A police station in Strasbourg is attacked and set on fire. A school is nearly destroyed a few miles from Villeneuve-la-Garenne.

Flynnocent: why the general has a long way to go before justice is served Roger Kimball

https://outline.com/xTjREr

Just moments ago, the news came in that Department of, um, Justice has dropped its — ‘um’ again — Gen. Michael Flynn, President Trump’s first national security adviser. ‘The Government has determined,’ the Court filing read, ‘pursuant to the Principles of Federal Prosecution and based on an extensive review and careful consideration of the circumstances, that continued prosecution of this case would not serve the interests of justice.’

You think?

It’s being blared about the internet that now, finally, at last, the 30-year military veteran has got justice.

Not yet he hasn’t.

The disgusting people running the FBI — big boy James Comey, and Peter Strzok, and former head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap, among others — pursued a vendetta against Flynn, manufacturing a bogus case against him in order, first, to destroy someone that Barack Obama and his intelligence operatives detested and, second, to pursue ‘Crossfire Hurricane’, the ‘umbrella’ investigation whose goal was to destroy Donald Trump.

They were pretty successful at the first job. They smeared Flynn, then they set him up, sending Strzok and another agent to have a friendly chat with him at the White House which they weaponized into a bogus ‘you lied to the FBI’ charge. They got him fired from his position as NSA, bankrupted him through ‘the-process-is-the-punishment’ legal feels, and forced him to plead guilty to a felony by threatening his son with another bogus charge.

Due to the tireless efforts of Flynn lawyer, Sidney Powell, the DoJ has been forced to cough up incriminating memo after incriminating memo. The pot of gold came last week when Bill Priestap’s handwritten notes of a meeting with Comey and then-deputy-FBI-Director Andrew McCabe blew the proverbial whistle. ‘What is our goal?’ Priestap asked, ‘Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?’ Or maybe they should just ‘get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, give facts to DOJ + have them decide.’

Amazing.

Gen. Flynn hasn’t got justice yet. That will come when he is made whole financially and when those who desecrated their offices by bringing the awesome police power of the state to bear against an individual they knew to be be innocent.

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Antibodies to attack coronavirus. The Israel Institute for Biological Research in Ness Ziona has developed four antibodies that attack the coronavirus and neutralize it in the body of an infected person. It is described as Israel’s “Manhattan Project” to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic. Trials and production planning have begun.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/279677
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/279861
 
Major discovery about Israeli HIV treatment. (TY UWI) The Israeli-developed Gammora HIV treatment is being used to treat HIV patients at the Cliniquie La Source hospital in the Congo. Those also with coronavirus significantly improved from both infections. A subsequent WHO-supervised study has confirmed the findings.
https://tps.co.il/articles/israeli-developed-hiv-drug-shows-promising-results-in-curing-covid-19/
 
Plasma antibody injections to be scaled up. As reported here previously, seriously ill coronavirus patients have benefited from blood plasma containing antibodies from patients who themselves have recovered from the virus. Now the MDA blood service has enough plasma to produce multiple concentrated antibody injections.
Latest (TY Hazel) – up to 100,000 Israelis are to be imminently tested to check if they have the antibodies.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/preventive-covid-19-antibody-injection-in-the-works-blood-service-chief/
https://unitedwithisrael.org/for-sickest-corona-patients-israeli-doctor-sees-impressive-results-with-plasma-treatment/  https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israel-set-to-launch-antibody-testing-this-week-626747
 
Micro-needles can deliver Corona vaccines more effectively. Over 4 years ago (see here), Israel’s NanoPass developed a microneedle system to deliver vaccines to cancer immunotherapy patients. Now the system is ready to deliver a future coronavirus vaccine. Its advantage is that less vaccine is required than using a regular needle.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-micro-needles-ready-to-deliver-corona-treatments/
 
Antiviral treatment starts Phase II trial. Israeli-founded SaNOtize, has been granted approval by Health Canada to conduct a Phase II trial for its antiviral early treatment against COVID-19. The Nitric Oxide Releasing Solution (NORS) was effective in the lab against influenza A, hCoV-OC43 and H1N1 (swine flu).
http://nocamels.com/2020/04/sanotize-phase-ii-trial-nasal-covid-19-therapy/
 
Helmsley Trust’s $11 million to Israeli hospitals. The Helmsley Charitable Trust has awarded $11 million of coronavirus grants to Israeli hospitals. It includes $5 million to eight Clalit Health Services hospitals. Another million dollars went to each of the hospitals of Poriya, Hadassah, Rambam, Shaare Zedek, Sheba and Sourasky.
https://helmsleytrust.org/news/helmsley-charitable-trust-announces-first-set-covid-19-emergency-response-grants
 
Medical clowns tackle coronavirus. Israel’s 600 medical clowns have been lifting the spirits of the elderly, medical staff and their children. Keeping 2 meters apart, they now use dramatic hand and body movements to communicate and decorate their face masks with stickers of crazy smiles, a mustache and silly expressions.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israels-medical-clowns-calm-corona-chaos/
 
Coronavirus shutdown. Assuta hospital in Ashdod has closed its coronavirus ward, because all its patients have recovered.  So did Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital, to the delight of its medical staff. Finally, Magen David Adom’s 24/7 coronavirus hotline has closed, transferring all calls to Israel’s healthcare companies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tBXn_mSWR0
https://unitedwithisrael.org/corona-free-first-israeli-hospital-closes-its-corona-ward/
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-israeli-doctors-nurses-dance-with-joy-as-corona-wards-close/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/mda-to-close-its-24-7-coronavirus-hotline-tomorrow/
 
Antibiotic injection fights superbugs. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed an intravenous injection to fight hospital superbugs (bacteria resistant to most current antibiotics). They used nanotechnology to develop an injected form of mupirocin – which previously was just an antibiotic ointment.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/jerusalem-researchers-say-theyve-developed-injection-to-fight-superbugs/
 
DIY glucose monitoring. Israel’s DarioHealth has just received US FDA approval for the use by patients of their Dario self-test glucose monitors in hospitals. The aim is to reduce exposure of healthcare workers to coronavirus infected patients.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/dariohealth-self-test-blood-glucose-meters-can-now-be-utilized-within-hospitals-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-per-recently-issued-emergency-fda-guidelines-301053830.html
 
Test shows if hope for comatose patients. Israeli researchers have devised a sniff-test using shampoo and rotten fish, to determine if brain-injured patients have a chance of recovery. If the patient showed a predictable response, that person had a 100% chance of recovering consciousness and a 92% chance of surviving 3+ years.
https://www.israel21c.org/sniff-test-can-predict-if-brain-injured-patient-will-wake-up/

MY SAY: Friedrich A. Hayek (1899–1992)

At a time when our personal freedoms are challenged, I reflect on the warnings of Friedrich Hayek the Austrian Nobel Laureate:

Please read this superb and rather long essay written on May 19, 2019.

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/f-a-hayek-on-individual-liberty/

F.A. Hayek on Individual Liberty by Richard M. Ebeling

The rebirth of a belief in and an enthusiasm for socialism and government planning among a noticeable number of academics, intellectuals, young people, and elected officials raises many of the fundamental issues surrounding freedom and command, market competition and political control.

Once more, a call is heard for doing away with free enterprise, this time in the name of a Green New Deal. The case is being made, again, that humankind must take the future of society into their own hands and remake it into forms and directions that are more rational and just than what results when “capitalism” runs unrestrained over the societal terrain in the pursuit of personal profit rather than goals advancing the common good and the general welfare.

Social justice, it is said, requires doing away with the income inequalities that emerge from the free play of supply and demand, because free-market–based results are all meant to distribute the most wealth into the hands of a few at the expense of the many. The “purpose” of the capitalist system is to exploit workers, minorities, and other victimized groups so the rich can be, well, rich.

The most frustrating elements in all this for the friend of freedom is how much of it has all been heard before, over and over again, during the last two hundred years. There is little in the latest versions of these statements that was not said in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.